Little Paper World
by bonnie-incognito
Summary: Chasing her for answers and a coffee across his little paper landscape; maybe it wouldn't make such a bad photograph after all. Colin Creevey oneshot.


Colin had always thought that life was more beautiful with a photo frame around it. He watched the world through a camera lens, and he understood it. You can't sit and watch the people go by; you have to _chase_ them if you want answers, a decent photograph, maybe even a coffee.

So Colin saw everything framed by a four-by-six inch box, and he never really did take to the wizarding tradition of moving photographs. The point of a photograph, he thought, was to capture the instance that everyone else ignored, not to relay the scene that all eyes were fixed upon anyway. It's just as easy to miss that split-second phenomenon the second time around as it is the first.

During his first year at Hogwarts, he is desperate to record every detail of this fascinating new world, craves excitement and beautiful girls to photograph. He makes it his ongoing quest to get Peeves in the frame, fierce determination driving him to outsmart the poltergeist. His childish wish is granted when he manages to get a shot of his unwilling subject cackling with glee as his latest prank unfolds successfully. He thinks, when he develops it, that the look on the unwitting victim's face is absolutely priceless, and the water cascading down upon them is really rather lovely in the ethereal evening glow.

Mission accomplished, his next great aim is to lie beneath the Scottish night sky, nought but his camera for company, and photograph the stars. He waits five long years, and he never forgets. Not once – instead, he regrets; there is no mystic beauty to these celestial bodies through the unforgiving lens of his companion, no wondrous twinkle in their eye. This is when he realizes, unlocks the purpose of what might very well be the rest of his life: he doesn't want photos of rainbows or stars, or waterfalls, these meaningless trivialities that they all put so much definition in. Puppies and kitten, fluffy bunnies and butterflies, he doesn't want them.

He wants emotion. He wants people and all their strings; he wants to wring every last drop of flaw out of them and paint a picture of hopeful damnation over the glossy images of spring lambs and pink tulips that mean _nothing_ to the world and its rainbows. He thinks that the inter-house Christmas party might be a good place to start, but he mourns that the only one worth a second glance is the shot of a tentative kiss under the mistletoe, courtesy of Neville Longbottom and Hannah Abbot. There's a curious innocence about it, he thinks, as he carefully sticks into one of his various photo albums, neatly labelling it with the subjects and date, then pushing the tattered book beneath his bed to grow a day older and socialize with the dust mites.

He photographs Harry and Ginny's first kiss in the common room, a halo of goodwill surrounding them in the form of cheering spectators and grinning friends; merriment in the air and butterbeer in the glass as Gryffindor celebrates another small victory. He photographs Hermione, studying, sat before the fire in her pyjamas at midnight and wishing she didn't have to be perfect, and she never knows he's there. He photographs Harry's chest monster when Dean insults Ginny, thinking him out of earshot and laughing at his own distaste with Seamus.

In a perverse moment of curiosity, he photographs Dumbledore's twisted, broken body where it lies on the damp grass beneath the Astronomy Tower. Earlier, he had photographed the Dark Mark, its pearlescent glow contrasting harshly against the deep indigo sky, but he ripped this snap to shreds in misery lest its evil destroy his little paper world and leave him alone in a foreign reality. He photographs Susan Bones for no reason whatsoever. He thinks he might love her. She's certainly the only one whose face he doesn't see through that little rectangular box; he doesn't think tunnel vision does her justice.

She probably thinks he's shy, with his camera for a face, and a shutter for words, but, he justifies to himself, it's not as if he goes around wearing a paper bag over his head – like Eloise Midgen should, he sometimes thinks, rather acidly. Nobody notices that he's actually rather charismatic when he puts the damned camera down and engages in conversation, because he never does. He sits through raucous Quidditch matches with the camera glued to his eyes, clicking away, bustling common room parties with the camera in quiet recess in his lap, pre-battle pep talks, numbly snapping photographs of his little paper world…

And along came the battle. He supposed it was inevitable; pre-battle pep talks can only precede a battle, logically. He chased Susan Bones across his little paper world for a coffee. He left his camera beneath his bed in the Gryffindor boys' dormitory and ran down the stairs, suppressing the urge to slide down the winding staircase, and he asked Susan Bones out for coffee at Madam Puddifoot's, just the very next Hogsmeade visit that came along. She smiled and told him she'd be glad to, yanking him out of the way of an enemy curse and deciding not to add, 'if we survive'. Colin Creevey was blasted backwards off a balcony perhaps a minute later, lifeless, unbreathing, and back in his little paper world.

**Thought I'd try a different character for once, veer off the Black family tack... ) Review? -huggles the reviewers- Your opinions really help, so I'd love to hear from you all!**


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